Page 87 of A Scar in the Bone
I stared, took it all in. The fog rolled thicker here, soupy air reaching my hips, and I wondered if it was a sign. If it was him, even dormant, earthed far below.
The wind clawed at my face, tearing my eyes; salty moisture trailed down my cheeks in rivulets. My chest ached—for what he had endured, for what he wasstillenduring. This was where he had been for over a year. In this desolate little spot.
“Fell,” I whispered into the viscous air, hoping to feel a pulse, a reaction from him. To feelhim.
Nothing.
“This is where they put him.” The wind whipped the edges of Sylvi’s hood. She looked tired, the bruised smudges under her eyes still present, and I felt a stab of guilt that I had not allowed her even a moment of rest, but that quickly vanished when I remembered Fell.
“How can you be sure?” Kerstin gestured around us with a careless flip of her hand, looking skeptical.
Sylvi pointed to the single tree in the distance. It was the only thing to mar the horizon.
“That?” I asked. “That’s the thing you remember?”
“I do. I remember everything about that day. I’ve seen them do horrible things, but that day …” She shook her head a little, as though it was too horrible to put into words. “I won’t ever forget.” She pointed to another nearby spot. “I was standing right over there.” Sylvi held my gaze, her hand drifting to rub her wrists that still bore the angry red marks of her bindings. “He fought hard. There were too many of them. He never had a chance, but he tried.”
A lump formed in my throat, blocking my airway as I envisioned that moment. I inhaled through my nose. Of course he’d fought. The Beast of the Borderlands would not have gone quietly into that hole.
I looked at Kerstin, clearly needing her. Unearthing Fell suited her talents entirely.
She understood. “I can try.”
I nodded tightly. If I had to use my own hands to dig him up, then that was what I would do, but Kerstin could make this happen with a fraction of the effort it would take me to dig him free.
Sylvi lifted those sharp shoulders of hers with a deep breath. “Well. I’ve done what I promised you.”
I stared at her, uncomprehending. “You did,” I acknowledged, wondering if she was seeking recognition. “Thank you.”
“You’re leaving,” Kerstin announced flatly.
Oh. I looked Sylvi up and down. Was that what she was saying? “You’re going?”
She nodded. “Call me paranoid, but I’m not entirely comfortable around dragons—especially one that has been buried alive for the last year.” Her lips twisted.
Fair. I couldn’t possibly know what she had endured during her captivity. Just in my brief observation, it had not been pleasant. “Will you be fine on your own?”
She pulled her cloak tighter around herself. “It can’t be any worse than when I was in the company of your kind.”
I winced. “Thoseare not my kind.”
She considered me with her shrewd eyes, and I wondered if she saw in me that I was different. Not only different from the skelm but different from all dragons.
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “You did free me, after all.” She sent a disdainful glance to Kerstin, clearly indicating she knew Kerstin had not been in support of that plan. She turned her smile back on me. “You saved my life. I won’t forget it.”
I shook my head and motioned to the ground. “Clearly, you’ve repaid your debt.”
Those eyes turned speculative, and there was something there, in her gaze, in the cant of her head, some uncertainty as she flicked a glance at the ground that held Fell. “I hope so.”
The vagueness of her reply unsettled me. Why should there be any doubt? If this was where she witnessed them put him to ground …
I narrowed my eyes on her. The air darkened faintly about her, her aura stirring like a drifting shadow.
“You don’t want to stay and make certain he is—”
“I think it best that I’m not here when you unearth him.”
Her expression was inscrutable, but I studied her, wondering if it was in my imagination or if there was an urgency about her to get away.
